Posts Tagged ‘Jimmy Carter’

Jimmy Carter’s visit yields freedom for jailed American

Newscast Media PYONGYANG, North Korea — Former US President Jimmy Carter has arrived back in the US with an American whose release by North Korea he won. Mr Carter and Aijalon Gomes touched down in Boston, where their plane was met by Mr Gomes’s family. Mr Gomes, who had been living in South Korea, was jailed in January after crossing into North Korea from China.

The insular nation’s state-run news agency said leader Kim Jong-il had granted the former president’s request to “leniently forgive” Mr Gomes. His friends and family applauded when the flight landed at Boston’s airport shortly after at 1400 (1800 GMT) on Friday.

Mr Gomes, who appeared thin, embraced his mother and Mr Carter upon walking off the plane. The former president spent two days in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, before leaving with Mr Gomes, who had been working as an English teacher in South Korea.

The US state department said it welcomed Mr Gomes’s release, but also stressed that Washington had played no official role in Mr Carter’s trip.

“We appreciate former President Carter’s humanitarian effort and welcome North Korea’s decision to grant Mr Gomes special amnesty and allow him to return to the United States,” state department spokesman Philip Crowley said. http://newscastmedia.com/carterjimmy.htm

Jimmy Carter makes trip to N. Korea to free American

Newscast Media — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was expected to arrive in North Korea’s capital city as early as Tuesday to negotiate the release of a U.S. citizen who has been detained since January of this year.

Senior U.S. officials have informed the press of Carter’s plan to depart this week for North Korea on a “purely humanitarian mission” to free 30-year-old Aijalon Mahli Gomes. Gomes, a devout Christian from Boston who taught English in South Korea, was arrested on Jan. 25 and sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor for entering North Korea illegally and for an unspecified “hostile act.”

Earlier this month, a team sent by the U.S. State Department to visit North Korea tried to free Gomes but was not granted permission to do so.

North Korea has reportedly requested a visit by a high-profile U.S. figure to gain the release of Gomes, and one U.S. official told The Associated Press that North Korea had agreed to free Gomes if Carter came for him.

Foreign Policy magazine, which first broke the news of Carter’s trip, reported the former president as the top pick among several possible candidates to help secure Gomes’ release. Others who were reportedly considered included Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Last year, former U.S. President Bill Clinton had flown to Pyongyang to free two U.S. journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of Current TV, who were sentenced to prison after illegally entering North Korea.

http://newscastmedia.com/carter.htm